34 reviews about Simple Savings

verified email - 05 Jul 2016

Simple Savings is a fantastic source of information about saving money in many areas, from babies to cars, food to fashion, groceries to utilities, plus heaps more. I’ve been a member for a few years and always find my membership more than pays for access to this resource. There is a forum where you can ask questions and people are happy to help. It’s only $27 to join and $21 to renew each year. I have saved thousands of dollars over the years. Highly recommend.

Approximate cost: $27

verified email - 02 Jun 2015

This is a great website for saving money. The website has really interesting articles to read and there is heaps of useful resources in the one place.

verified email - 18 Oct 2012

I've only been a member of simple savings for a few weeks now, but oh my has it made a difference to my financial situation!! I have NEVER been good with money, but for pretty much the first time in my life, my bank account hasn't been any where near empty for WEEKS! My bills are being paid on time, there's plenty of food in the cupboards, and most importantly, I'm NOT STRESSING ABOUT MONEY! And it is an amazing feeling :)
I probably could have saved myself the $47 membership fee by doing some good Internet research for all of these tips I've found, but really, that could have taken a very long time - and as a SS member I have access to the Vault which has all of these savings tips in one easy to find section, and there is also the Savings Forum which is pretty much a never ending supply of tips for saving and/or making money!

Approximate cost: $47

verified email - 08 Sep 2012

Simple Savings is a great resource for finding ways of saving money on nearly any topic.

Over the years I've found the site to be more of a dumping ground for personal dramas, but I try to ignore those threads and focus on the money saving ones.

Some of my favourite threads are “Odd little things to do to earn some cash”, “Vouchers and special deals”, and “Today I saved by…”.

On the whole I find the site very good, as others actions to save money are inspiring, and the community is warm, welcoming and helpful.

verified email - 30 Apr 2012

I joined this site approx 4 years ago, when I dropped from a well paid middle management position to a carers pension as I looked after my partner. This would have been a daunting task without the help and advice on this site, the Budgeting hints and tips were useful, the recipes and home hints helped me to keep in control of my budget. Living in a remote location instead of the central city the non savings chat forum meant that I established a new friendship base, that was very supportive in the changes in my life. It is possible to choose not to see the non savings chat threads when you enter the forums if you wish to opt just for the savings hints, tips and recipes. I have found this site to be excellent.

Approximate cost: $yearly subscription, or sign up for the newsletter for free.

verified email - 10 Mar 2012

Simple Savings was set up originally as a site where you could learn how to save money. They offer the Vault - a section with members (and non members) saving tips, a monthly (late) newsletter, downloads (their own and members creations) and the savings forum.

The savings forum (paid members only) was the one thing that kept me renewing year after year as some of the content was outstanding. Over the past few years I think a lot of the content has turned into members personal dramas with very little being to do with actual money or savings.

As more personal dramas were unfolding, more moderation came into force to the point of it being well and truly over the top. To top it off more and more rules for posting were added which were strict to the point of being ridiculous. It appeared that anyone with an opposing viewpoint would be silenced. This included site requests.

Members can be banished without warning or adequate explanation. Recently I heard there has been a member cull of active members and customer service as gone right out of the window.

I'm no longer a member of this site as I am thoroughly fed up after 7 years of loyalty from me and I expected a lot more customer service from them.

The monthly newsletter they offer is free and I would strongly suggest having that sent prior to spending money to join the site.

katep18 26 Jun 2012

Joanne6, I have to say that I could have written your review! I was also a Simple Savings member for a number of years.

I also noticed over the past year or two, the same "shift" in the nature of forum posts and agree with you that I often could not understand the style of moderation that was haphazardly and often unfairly applied to member comments.

In the end, I also had enough and subsequently cancelled my membership.

primbinda 09 Sep 2012

Yes you raised some valid points . My membership has just run out and I am questioning the validity for renewing it as there seems to be more dramas and thinsg than money saving tips. It used to be more about saving money!

verified email - 08 Mar 2012

Simple Savings is a fairly basic concept - it is a frugality blog that collates contributions from members in the form of submitted hints, recipes and tips. It also has some input from the site owners in the form of news letters, printable tip sheets, etc. However, the vast majority of useful information comes from the very generous contributions of its members.
If you are looking for handy hints on how to save money, the site has some merit, but a lot of it you would be able to find for free by Googling it. There are countless thousands of frugality sites on the web, after all, with little point of difference between them.

Far and away the best feature of the site used to be the members forum. This is a private chat forum for paid members and encompasses chat about savings, recipes, health, relationships, all manner of interesting topics. Paradoxically, whilst I thought the forum was the site's best feature, it turns out that it is also its worst. It is over-moderated to the point of zealousness, criticism is reacted to hypervigilantly, it is unrealistic in that the strict moderation demands that everything be sanitised with no dissenting viewpoints at all and debate on any topic is strictly forbidden. Recently, there has been a lot of expulsions of highly active members of the forum (over two dozen members expelled or suspended to date) which has definitely harmed the site and destroyed its former ambience.

verified email - 08 Mar 2012

A savings site that has a large membership base. Members contribute tips to the vault. There is a forum which is well used by a lot of members.

Approximate cost: $47

verified email - 08 Mar 2012

I have been a member for 2 years. First few months I really did get my money's worth. There are some great money saving's tips and the advice on the forums was brilliant, on the first day of being on Simple Savers I saved myself about $120 through advice on dishwasher repairs. Since then I have implemented ideas on cooking, shopping, house cleaning, decluttering and also received advice and support in children issues.

However, once I had been through all the tips, they started to be repeated and recycled. At that point I only visited the forums as there is a great bunch of people offering a lot of support.

After some time there, I felt the forums were over moderated and had some double standards, eg threads mentioning being a Christian were deleted, yet others mentioning other spiritual values were left to run.

Disappointing facet to what could be a fantastic site.

Anonymous
verified email - 05 Mar 2012

No longer a member as I feel unhappy with the way the forum rules are not followed and paying members are removed over trivial "offences" without warnings as were specified in the site rules.

I joined in good faith and enjoyed many of the threads but the moderation seems to be extremely heavy handed in my opinion and many helpful members have now gone.

Approximate cost: $17

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